My annual book and movie list!

My tally for the year was: 46 movies, 42 books, 1 play, 2 web series, 1 comedy show, and 1 short online movie (a big book-reading improvement on last year’s tally of 55 movies, 17 books and 2 TV series).

As for games, I spent a lot of time playing Pokemon shuffle, but that’s about it (I usually only like games with shape-matching but no characters, so it’s a bit limiting – although I had a go at Trials fusion and new Tetris). I didn’t visit the library as often as I’d like, but I bought a lot more books than I would normally (i.e. more than zero), and made sure that at least one other person read my copies to make them a bit greener. I also forgot to note which art exhibitions I saw, but that’s a goal for another year.

2015 was definitely my year of reading Richelle Mead’s series: Bloodlines, Georgina Kincaid, Age of X and Dark Swan (Eugenie Markham). But now I need to read Soundless (from late 2015), and The Glittering Court is coming – when all I want is to petulantly demand another Age of X or Dark Swan book (they are pending/unknown). It was really pleasing to read the concluding book of the Bloodlines series – a colleague once said I was a “completionist”, and for sure, I do like it when things are done, I hate waiting on book release dates.  I was delighted to read the next Jewel series instalment, The White Rose, but now have to wait for the next one, The Black Key, to be released this fall (in America – autumn is in late September, so maybe 235 days?). Yuck. This is why I read things after the hype is over and there is no waiting, but I guess it is good to support art and culture in-process, but sometimes I can’t stand the anticipation.

It was also a big year of reading Cassandra Clare’s series: The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices. And now to wait for The Dark Artifices. Life is just waiting for more books, it seems.

I’ve continued my love of trashy movies, but made them a bit more educational with Norwegian subtitles, it would be so helpful if subtitle language availability was made clearer across library catalogues and other listings. And I read the very worst book in the world, Zelda’s cut, which was so frustrating and depressing. I made my mother-in-law read it so that we could bond through our mutual dislike of everything about the characters and storyline.

January

• Trolljegeren (Troll hunter, Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
• Bloodlines series: 3, The indigo spell, 4, The fiery heart, 5, Silver shadows (books)
• Jo Nesbo’s Jackpot (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
• Men in black (English movie with Norwegian subtitles)

“Goddamn bugs.” = “Fordømte insekt.”

• Ickle Pickle’s Cinderella (play)
• Junior (English movie with Norwegian subtitles – DVD busted 40 minutes in)
• Age of X series, 1, Gameboard of the gods (book)

“Seeing the outside of her body was nothing compared to seeing the inside. Even now, he was probably analysing her outburst, and she already felt too raw and exposed. If she kept her back to him, maybe she could hide the hole in her that she felt he’d ripped open.” p. 300

“She’d never heard of lingonberries but Nordics seemed to love them.” p. 358

• Headhunters (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
• The boyfriend dilemma by Fiona Foden (book)
• World class trains: the Polar Express (movie – I thought it’d be about Santa but it was about Sweden, this was probably due to my very general keyword search of Norway/Norsk/Oslo/Norwegian, which is why I also watched the DVD Sissel in concert: all good things)
• Sweet land: a love story (movie)

“Different kinds of happy”

• Mortdecai (movie at the cinema)
• Georgina Kincaid series, 1, Succubus blues (book)

“The sweater and khakis combination looked both respectable and subdued, though the color scheme blended a bit too well with my light brown hair. It was a librarian sort of outfit. Did I want to look subdued? Maybe.” p. 43

“I could still feel where his power had touched me, rather like a tactile version of the afterimage one sees with a camera flash.” p. 321.

• Georgina Kincaid series, 2, Succubus nights (book)
• Georgina Kincaid series, 3, Succubus dreams (book)

“It twinkled like starlight, seeping into me.” p. 102

• Georgina Kincaid series, 4, Succubus heat (book)

“A flower of agony and euphoria burst open in my chest.” P. 356

February

• Georgina Kincaid series, 5. Succubus shadows (book)

“She was still using that librarian voice, but I had to admit she looked more like a succubus than the last time I’d seen her.” p. 80

“Out here in the middle of nowhere, stars clustered the sky, and night insects rained down a symphony of chatter.” p. 177

• Georgina Kincaid series, 6. Succubus revealed (book)

“Our souls are like …oh, I don’t know. It’s like they’re encased in amber. They’re there, and I can see them inside us.” p. 253

• The butcher’s wife (English movie with Norwegian subtitles)
• Immortal: love stories with bite (book)
• Pitch perfect (movie)
• Bloodlines series, 6, The ruby circle (book)
• Confidence (movie)

“See this? That’s your love line, that’s your money line, and that’s looking very, very good. And that’s your life line going all the way down – uh-oh. See that little gap there. It means that at one point, you could have a little trouble. But it’s up to you to make it better.”

• Asterix and the Picts (book)
• Bleak: the web series
• The Katering show episodes

March

• Taffin (movie)
• Age of X series, 2, The immortal crown (book)

“You’re too entrenched in mortal thinking if you think this is a coincidence. Don’t you know I’m looking out for you?” p. 181

• Norwegian wood (movie)

“If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well.”

• Eugenie Markham/Dark Swan series: 1, Storm born, 2, Thorn queen, 3, Iron crowned, 4, Shadow heir (books)
• Little big man (English movie with Norwegian subtitles)

“…it would’ve been deliciously wicked.”

“Something snapped in my head. I decided life wasn’t fit to live, and the only thing to do was to mingle with the twinkling stars.”

• Blue caprice (movie)
• A somewhat gentle man [En Ganske snill mann] (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
• The Mortal Instruments series, 1, City of Bones (book)

“…you’re an artist… That means you see the world in ways that other people don’t. It’s your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn’t make you crazy – just different. There’s nothing wrong with being different.” p. 29

“The face of the angel was fierce and beautiful and sad.” p. 169

• The world is a playground, comedy show by Chris Endrey
• Zelda’s cut (book)

“She had her hand clamped over her mouth as if to hold the kiss and the power of the kiss inside her. …Still she kept her hand over her mouth, still she felt, under the unconscious grip of her fingers, the heat and the power of his kiss.” p. 75

“The messages became more and more of a ritual, a sacrifice to an unresponsive god…” p. 396

• Worms in the night (book)

“…if anyone saw me I’d look normal – not like a bogan or anything.” p. 1

“…our sunroom: seagrass matting, cane furniture with lime-green cushions…” p. 14

“He’s such a spunk, but he’s always distant.” p.17

“The worms will come.” p. 22

“The worms will get you,’ the voice said clearly. ‘The worms come in the night.’” p. 22

“Look out for the worms. They’ll get you,’” p. 23

April

• Before midnight (movie)

“I don’t know where I’m from, but I’m very hairy.”

“I just naturally feel bad about everything, and you give me that look, like it’s my fault.”

• The Mortal Instruments series, 2, City of Ashes (book)
• The tale of Desperaux (movie)
• The Duff (movie at the cinema)
• Leviathan (Russian movie with English subtitles at the cinema)
• The Mortal Instruments series, 3, City of Glass , 4, City of Fallen Angels, 5, City of Lost Souls (books)
• The Mortal Instruments series, 6, City of Heavenly Fire  (book)

“Simon didn’t need a mirror to know he was wearing eye-liner. The knowledge was instant, and complete.” p. 133

“And when I die and they burn my body and I become ashes that mix with the air, and part of the ground and the trees and the stars, everyone who breathes that air or sees the flowers that grow out 707 of the ground or looks up at the stars will remember you and love you, because I love you that much.” pp. 706-7.

• Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray (movie, but unsure which version)
• Cinderella (movie)
• Maleficent (again! movie)
• The Infernal Devices series, 1, Clockwork Angel (book)

“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” p. 93

“He didn’t know what books 103 meant to her, that books were symbols of truth and meaning, that this one acknowledged that she existed and that there were others like her in the world.” pp. 103-104

“…a lot of vampires were beautiful. Their beauty had always seemed to him like the beauty of pressed flowers – lovely, but dead.” p. 197

“There was a clear picture in her head of the sea. It had drawn back entirely from the shore, and she could see the small creatures it had left gasping in its wake, flapping and dying on the bare sand.” p. 470

• The Infernal Devices series, 2, Clockwork Prince (book)
• The Infernal Devices series, 3, Clockwork Princess (book)

“There were still flecks of dried blood around his collarbones, a sort of brutal necklace.” p. 78

“…she had understood-oh, she had been told it before, had known it before, but that was not the same as understanding…” p. 159

“Life was an uncertain thing, and there were some moments one wished to remember, to imprint upon one’s mind that the memory might be taken out later, like 372 a flower pressed between the pages of a book, and admired and recollected anew.” pp. 372-3.

“She held his face between her hands as they kissed-he tasted slightly of tea leaves, and his lips were soft and the kiss entirely sweet. Sophie floated in it, in the prism of the moment, feeling safe from all the rest of the world.” p. 373

“I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way.” p. 412

“’What you are, what you can do, it is like some great miracle of the earth, like fire or wildflowers or the breadth of the sea. You are unique in the world, just as you are unique in my heart, and there will never be a time when I do not love you.’” p. 537

• Testament of Youth (movie at the cinema)

May

• The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, Notes by Robert Mighall (book)

“If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?” p. 103

“He went towards the little pearl-coloured octagonal stand, that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver…” p. 120

“…getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates, and stitched over with iridescent beetles’ wings…” p. 133

• Not suitable for children (movie)
• The unbecoming of Mara Dyer (book)

“I was a goldfish without a castle to hide in.” p. 54

“My shoulders sagged as if someone let all the air out of the smiley-face balloon that was my heart.” p. 274

• The evolution of Mara Dyer (book)

“I’ll walk forever with stories inside me that the people I love the most can never hear.” p. 258

“The papers flutter when I open or close the door, like the walls are breathing.” p. 305

• The retribution of Mara Dyer (book)

“I love you. Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever. If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If I were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.” p. 453

“…it feels like we’re alone in a sea of beating hearts and breathing lungs.” p. 466

• Kung fury (online movie)
• Rabbit Hole (movie)

“Oh! I like the way it cracks.” “Mmm-hmm. Of course you do.”

June

• We need to talk about Kevin (movie)
• Grey (book – I also wrote a fanfic about this first book from Christian’s perspective)

“My anxiety mushrooms; this deal could all go to shit.” p. 90

“I undo my bow tie. Perhaps it’s me that’s empty.” p. 292

“Anxiety blooms in my chest.” p. 379

• Orange is the new black (book)

“…I understood that these stories held their own accuracy.” p. 141

“Lack of empathy lies at the heart of every crime…” p. 298

July

• Fanny och Alexander (Swedish movie with English subtitles, at the cinema)
• The skin I live in (Spanish movie with English subtitles)

“…there’s a place where you can take refuge, a place inside you, a place to which no one else has access, a place that no one can destroy.”

“I breathe. I know I breathe.”

• Summer Coda (movie)

“…I don’t really know you. But I feel like I do.”

“…and we all have stuff that we wanted to say that we could’ve said. …we never put a time-limit on these things. They’re just so easy to put off. But just because he didn’t say it, doesn’t mean that you didn’t feel it. It just means that you’re the only one that will ever know.”

• Angel (movie)

“What in tarnation would I be doing with toys?”

• Homesick (Norwegian movie with English subtitles)
• St Trinian’s 2 – The Legend of Fritton’s Gold

“I’d rather cover myself in jam and sit on a wasps’ nest.”

About a puppy: “I bet if he could talk, he’d be trying to tell me just how much he loves me.”

• Remember Me (movie)

“Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.”

August

• Ironman (movie)
• Faberge (movie at the cinema)
• Hansel and Gretel (movie)
• Jackass 1 & 2 (movies)

September

• Mazerunner: The Scorch Trials (movie at the cinema)

“People in the mountains? Mountain-people? That’s your plan?”

• The children’s Bach (book)

“That’s what they should have on TV every night… Not that violent American rubbish. They should have the Sunset Report. Brought to you by the Federal Department of Nature Appreciation.” p. 35

“There was no way he could have known that her heart, for the thousandth time, felt as if it had turned into a sharp splinter.” p. 77

• The Bane Chronicles (book)

“…her remembered face like the distant familiar beauty of stars, not to be touched but to shine in front of his eyes at night.” p. 17

“Magnus had learned to be careful about giving his memories with his heart. When people died, it felt like all the pieces of yourself you had given to them went as well. It took so long, building yourself back up until you were whole again, ,and you were never entirely the same.” p. 34

“This was what humans did: They left one another messages through time, pressed between pages or carved into rock. Like reaching out a hand through time, and trusting in a phantom hoped-for hand to catch yours. Humans did not live forever. They could only hope what they made would endure.” p. 42

“Everything about this exchange was wrong. This was not how the reunion should have gone. It should have been coy, it should have had many strange pauses and moments of double meaning.” p. 283

“The heart had its reasons, and they were seldom all that reasonable.” p. 331

“…a trouble sundae with dark secret cherries on top.” p. 331

“And silver, though few people knew it, was a rarer metal than gold.” p. 396

• Heart of Darfur (book)

“seeing the overwhelming needs and fears in the world we can all be excused for wanting to withdraw.” p. 106

October

• American Pie Reunion (movie – it was as awful as it sounds)
• The Visit (movie at the cinema – this was just so terrible, I have written more about this previously)

November

• The Dressmaker (movie at the cinema)
• Sex and the City 2 (movie)
• The White Rose (book)

“I wish I could unzip my skin and show him the place inside me where Ash lives, tangled up in blood and bone and muscle, impossible to separate or remove.” p. 117

“I rub my eyes. There’s too much in my head, and not enough space for it all.” p. 172

• Mockingjay Part 2 (movie at the cinema)

December

• The Good Dinosaur (movie at the cinema)
• Murder by the book

“…the big cabinets where rare old books and memorabilia grew silently older and rarer behind glass.” p. 70

• The Eyre Affair (book)

“The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think: a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.” [didn’t write down the pagination!]

• 50 shades of grey (movie)
• Magic Mike II (movie)
• Death of a Butterfly (a Detective Sigrid Harald mystery)

“The backs of his hands were lightly sprinkled with brown age marks, but the hands were still capable – a craftsman’s hands, strong and square, yet with the promise of lyrical, gentle touch.” p. 10

• Magpies, squirrels and thieves: how the Victorians collected the world (book)

“His relationship with his employer was edgy and barbed, liable to erupt in furious explosions.” p. 22

“…Robinson was suggesting that it was not only beautiful objects themselves that were important, but also the very ‘pursuit’ of collecting them. Tracking down objects, studying them, comparing and treasuring them…” p. 69

“This portrait… …was showing off the part of him that mattered – his collection.” p. 189

“He became a collector of stories.” p. 343

• The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (movie)